Iva is still in the intensive care unit. We have no updates from the doctor on the pathology results yet, so we still don't know if she will need more surgery.
Basically they removed four tumors--2 from each lung. They found an unexpected 5th metastasis on her chest wall and had to remove that tissue plus part of two of her ribs--on the left side. Our theory is that the prior surgeon in April who tried to repair her collapsed lung contaminated her chest wall with tumor cells. This all because he didn't know jack shit about sarcoma and was either too idiotic or arrogant to research what the hell he was doing prior to poking around in her chest. If he had bothered to admit that he didn't know what he was doing, he could have learned that that type of surgery is the exact kind you do not do on a patient with sarcoma tumors in the lung. And for this very reason. Shame on him!
She is doing fairly well. She has lots of pain that is keeping her from breathing very deeply. This is giving her the sensation that she is suffocating, which of course, is making her anxious. She is able to talk with us for the brief visiting periods. She is drinking juice. She sat up today in a cardiac chair for three hours. She is getting an MRI of the chest tonight. Tomorrow is tumor board and they will decide what to do. If the margins of the resected tissue are clean, then she won't need any additional surgery. If there are tumor cells in the margins or there isn't a wide enough "clean" area, then they have to go back in and remove more tissue. The surgeon couldn't do it last night since she wasn't expecting it and did not have a neurosurgeon available. She will need one to assist with removal of the additional rib tissue because it extends into the area of spinal nerves and such.
Of course, we are all hoping for clean pathology results with no bone involvement. If the ribs are affected, well, let us know think of that.
Praying continues.
ReplyDeleteLove, Sue.